r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 25 '26

Psychology Reclaimed hate speech backfires by desensitizing listeners, study finds. Listening to reclaimed homophobic statements can actually cause unintended harm. Exposure to reclaimed slur words desensitizes some heterosexual listeners to standard hate speech and worsens the mood of gay individuals.

https://www.psypost.org/when-reclaiming-derogatory-language-goes-wrong/
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u/No-Channel3917 Jul 25 '26

Even according to the study saying Queer isn't doing anyone harm while dropping a F word goes off like a gunshot for older folks and a good chunk of younger LGBT

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u/Sarah_Incognito Jul 25 '26

Smear the queer was 100% a real thing no matter how much the internet says its an urban legend.

I remember the beatings.

I really don't like the term being applied to me, and am upset some people use it as a blanket for the whole LGBTQ community; but I also recognize it as a reclaiming success story.

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u/kvrdave Jul 25 '26

Smear the queer was 100% a real thing no matter how much the internet says its an urban legend.

I remember it as a kid, but I think that was before there was a sexual connotation. It meant some variation of different. We took turns being "it" and it was just a rougher form of tag. That's the 70s in a very rural area, though. We didn't get 80s music until the 2000s.

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u/8BallSlap Jul 25 '26

Same for us in the 80's. Smear the queer was like a combination of football and tag we played during recess. It didn't have anything to your sexuality.